Rosemary V. Barnett, PhD

Professor
Youth Development and Public Policy

Dr. Barnett is an educator who specializes in youth development issues. She earned a M.Ed. in Counselor Education (Florida Atlantic University) and a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership/Higher Ed. (University of Florida). Her post-doctorate was in the area of Graduate Studies and Research in Education at the UF College of Education. Dr. Barnett has been in the Dept. of Family, Youth and Community Sciences in IFAS for nearly 15 years after visiting two additional years from the UF College of Education. She teaches a variety of courses on promoting positive youth development, understanding adolescent problematic behavior and public policy for families, youth and communities. She has been a nominee for the IFAS Teacher of the Year Award three times, the IFAS Advisor of the Year award twice, and was recently one of five UF nominees for the prestigious UF Distinguished Alumni Faculty Award (2011-12). She was one of three individual faculty members nominated by the Dean of IFAS Sponsored Programs for the prestigious national 2003 USDA Research Honor Award. Dr. Barnett was awarded one of eight University of Florida IFAS Research Innovation Grants in 2007 as PI.

Her research and technical experience includes various projects aimed at benefiting at-risk youth. She has served as PI or Co-PI of over 20 projects with funding totaling over $2M, including the currently funded USDA CYFAR FL after-school project Youth Involved in Community Issues.
Dr. Barnett has had extensive experience conducting research in the area of youth risk behavior and prevention science that began with her leadership as Co-PI of the Title I Center for North Central Florida serving critically low performing schools in 16 school districts. This led to serving as State Research Coordinator on a longitudinal study with a focus on reducing crime and violence in public schools in Florida. Her research has also investigated the effectiveness of prevention programs used to minimize risks related to bullying, aggression, and risky behaviors by adolescents and emerging adults. Dr. Barnett currently serves as the State Evaluator on the USDA CYFAR 5-year project--Florida Youth Involved in Community Issues where she is analyzing the effects of after-school programming on at-risk youth in two county programs. She is also conducting research on at-risk youth perceptions of personal future and social risk behavior patterns in their local community. Many of her publications focus on youth community development and ways to integrate youth into community. She has approximately 30 peer reviewed articles related to these topics as well as many formal reports to government agencies. She is also the author of the EDIS series “Who Am I?” on adolescent development that has a national audience.

Many of her research studies and publications have been focused on various risk and protective factors of adolescent/emerging adult risk behaviors, including risky sexual behaviors, alcohol and drug use, gender role conflict, and health and well-being related to family, friends, community, and love in a cross-cultural context. Her research has extended to international arenas with studies done with researchers at the National University of Ireland on adolescent well-being and building stronger communities with youth; and the University of Ankara (Turkey) on emerging adult love types and associated effects of well-being. She is an active member of the Society for Research on Adolescence and the Society for the Study of Emerging Adulthood and she has presented at over 25 national or international conferences. She has also designed approximately 20 copyrighted instrumentations for various research studies.

She has also served for five years each as a USDA CYFAR National Conference Evaluator and a CYFERnet national extension editorial board member (school-aged children). In 2011, Dr. Barnett was named a Fulbright Scholar and in 2012, she completed a six month faculty professional development leave at the University of Georgia. She is listed in the Madison Who’s Who of Executives and Professionals and is a faculty member of Alpha Zeta Honors Fraternity. Dr. Barnett has chaired many thesis in the department pertaining to adolescents and emerging adults and enjoys working with students interested in research on these developmental stages. She is also a single parent with identical twin emerging adult daughters, both of whom graduated from UF with honors and attended two other SEC graduate schools for their master’s degrees.